Make-it-yourself Raspberry Pi kit reaches funding target

By Edd Gent

Published Wednesday, November 20, 2013

A make-it-yourself computer and coding kit powered by the Raspberry Pi has reached its crowd funding target in just 18 hours.

The Kano is a kit aimed at anyone aged eight and upwards interesting in building their own computer and learning to code and includes a Raspberry Pi, a case, wireless keyboard with trackpad, cables, Wi-Fi dongle, and even a speaker and a simple instruction booklet to guide contruction.

The firm hit their $100,000 (£62,000) fundraising target earlier today, smashing their mid-December deadline with the amount continuing to climb, meaning they can can now start production of the kits.

The package also comes with Kano OS, a Debian Wheezy based operating system that guides users through assembling the machine, creating an account and loading up a graphical desktop, and Kano Blocks that allows users to assemble algorithms by dragging, dropping and clipping together blocks of logic to output code in Python or Javascript among other languages.

On their Kickstarter page, the firm says: “We often draw lines between things: art and science, code and design, STEM and the humanities. It makes ‘digital literacy’ seem like brussels sprouts – good for you, but hard to chew. It shouldn't be so hard to get started – to make, play and experiment right out of the box.”

Kano Blocks runs six Kano Levels, software projects that guide users through the coding process of making Pong, Snake, Minecraft, videos, and music and the developers have promised more levels to come.

The firm released 200 early prototypes in May to allow school kids and technology fans to test them out. For a video of reactions to the kit, visit the E&T Magazine Facebook page.